Last in Line @Count’s Vampd 4-14-16

Last in Line: CD Release Party @Count’s Vampd

By: Leah Burlington

The heavy metal band “Last in Line” formed in 2012 with former members of the original lineup of Dio. Their name comes from the 1984 Dio album “The Last in Line.” The original lineup of Vinny Appice on drums, Jimmy Bain on bass, Vivian Campbell on guitar and Claude Schnell on keyboards reunited along with vocalist Andrew Freeman to perform the Dio songs they originally recorded. They pay tribute to their fallen front man and legendary vocalist Ronnie James Dio, who passed away in 2010. This band plays songs from “Holy Diver”,” Last in Line” and “Sacred Heart” when they play live and now new songs as well. They played a few shows in 2013, one was at the Vinyl at the Hard Rock Hotel, that I attended. That was an epic first taste of what was to come with this band.

Skip to January of 2016 and while Last in Line was promoting the new not yet released CD “Heavy Crown” on the Def Leppard cruise, tragedy struck and their bassist and friend, Jimmy Bain passed away on the ship. If that wasn’t enough, Lep singer, Joe Elliot lost his voice so the mighty Andrew Freeman saved the day and performed with Def Leppard for the fans. The Last in Line show didn’t happen. After the cruise, the band kept going with a heavy heart. Jimmy never got to see the new album he worked so hard on get released.

Last in Lines debut album “Heavy Crown” came out February 19th 2016, produced by Jeff Pilson who was also in Dio and Dokken among many others. It is a heavy hitting album going back to the classic sounds of Dio and Sabbath, without sounding dated. It’s an incredible album with many standouts like “Heavy Crown”, “Starmaker” and “Devil in Me.”

Last in Line played Count’s Vampd in Las Vegas for their CD release party which included a red carpet with members from the Vegas own #1 show, “Raiding the Rock Vault”, which Andrew Freeman is also a part of since its inception three years ago.